July 2015 – The Summer of Invertebrates

Week Four

Well, this week was crazy to say the least! We spent over 20 hours doing field work this week, and had our fair share of problems along the way.

On Monday, we just worked in the lab again. Sam and I pinned more bees and packed up the vehicles to go out to Boardman the next day.

Tuesday was our first of field work at Boardman. At each of the 18 sites, we were putting out pan traps, opening/filling pitfall traps, hand-netting, and doing floral surveys. However, about two months ago, there was a fire that burned over 40,000 acres of the Boardman Grasslands, including about a third of Lauren’s sites. It also made the roads extremely sandy. Because the roads are so terrible, we rented a UTV to get to some of the sites. We split into two groups: Sam, Sandy, and I in the truck, and Estany and Lauren in the UTV. Unfortunately, the UTV got a flat tire about an hour into doing fieldwork, and they weren’t able to finish the seven sites that they were supposed to do. So we had to drive out in the truck and pick up Lauren and Estany. The whole point of having the UTV, though, was that we were worried that the truck wouldn’t make it on some of the roads that the UTV was going on. Fortunately, we made it out there without too much trouble, but it was definitely not a drive I would care to do again. Once we picked up Estany and Lauren, we finished all of their sites, and the 11 that we were going to do in the first place. All in all, it was a very long day; Sandy, Sam, and I spent 13 hours doing field work on Tuesday.

20150714_124332 — Me opening a pan trap at Boardman (click to enlarge)

20150714_172306 — One of the burned sites at Boardman (click to enlarge)

On Wednesday, Lauren, Sam, and I went to the Umatilla National Wildlife Refuge. We did the same things we were doing at Boardman on Tuesday: putting out pan traps, opening/filling pitfall traps, hand-netting, and doing floral surveys. Luckily, everything went fairly smoothly, and we finished the six sites before noon.

20150715_112634 — Part of the Umatilla National Wildlife Refuge (click to enlarge)

20150715_101915 — Columbia River at the Umatilla National Wildlife Refuge (click to enlarge)

On Thursday, we went to Boardman again to collect pan traps and do vegetation surveys. This time Estany didn’t come with us, so I was in the UTV with Lauren, and Sam and Sandy were in the truck. Lauren and I were sure that everything was going to go smoothly on Thursday… but of course we weren’t that lucky. About fifteen minutes from the station, one of the tires on the trailer carrying the UTV blew out.

20150716_100214 — The remains of the tire from the trailer (click to enlarge)

Fortunately, we were close enough that Dan, one of the mechanics from the station, came to the rescue and helped us fix the trailer. Sandy and Sam left to get started on their sites at Boardman, and Lauren and I finally got back on the road about an hour later. Once we were at Boardman everything went smoothly. Riding in the UTV was quite the experience though. I don’t think I’ve ever had that much dirt in my eyes, but it was a lot of fun!

20150716_134653 — Lauren and I on the UTV trying to avoid inhaling more dirt that we had to (click to enlarge)

On Friday, Sam and I went back to the Umatilla to collect pan traps and Sam did vegetation surveys.

Overall, this week was a lot of fun, but it was definitely long and I am really happy that it’s the weekend! Now we just have to keep our fingers crossed that everything goes smoothly next week while were doing field work.

Week Three

Week Three is in the books! It was a very long week, but we accomplished a lot, and got caught up with a ton of lab work.

On Monday and Tuesday morning, Sam, Estany, Lauren, and I set up twelve experimental plots in some of the fields here at the station for Sandy. Other than that, we spent the rest of the week in the lab.

On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Sam and I worked on pinning insect samples from Starkey Experimental Forest where Sandy is doing research. The purpose of Sandy’s research is too look at the effect of different types of grazing on bee communities. At Starkey, Sandy has three different pastures that she does experiments in. Within each pasture, there are different levels of grazing: Deer and Elk, Livestock (Cattle), All (Deer, Elk, and Cattle), and None. She also has three methods of bee collection which include blue-vane traps, pan traps, and hand-netting. Within each sample, we separated the bees and non-bees (beetles, flies, etc). Unlike with Lauren’s samples, we pinned everything in the samples instead of just bees. It was really interesting to see the huge variety of insects collected at Starkey. Altogether, Sam and I pinned around 2,300 insects in three days!

20150709_164221[1] — All of the insects from the Starkey samples that Sam and I pinned this week (click to enlarge)

After we finished the samples from Starkey, we continued to work on Lauren’s samples. We finished with all of the samples from 2014 and the samples from June 2015 from Boardman. Now, we are pinning this year’s samples from the Umatilla and the Zumwalt. We also had some really blue bees in a couple of the Boardman samples!

20150709_113611

We accomplished a lot this week, and it’s nice to be finally be almost caught up with lab work! I’m really excited to get out of the lab though. We have a lot of field work coming up next week!

Week Two

Happy Fourth of July! Week 2 was a success! I mostly worked in the lab this week, but we did spend one day in the field.

On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Sam, Estany, and I worked on pinning bee samples from Boardman from August 2014, and we finished! Which means that we only have one more month of bees to pin from last year, and then we move on to working on this year’s samples! Sam and I also repainted 163 pan traps on Monday and Tuesday. We had to chip all of the old spray paint and primer off of the cups, and then prime and spray paint them again. It was very tedious and time consuming, but now we are ready to put out traps at Boardman in two weeks!

20150629_161610[1] — These green bees are some of the most common bees that we have been seeing in the August samples from Boardman (click to enlarge)

On Thursday, Sam, Lauren and I left the station at 6:00 am to go out to the Zumwalt for the day. We collected all of the pit fall traps that we set out last week, and Lauren did more vegetation surveys. It was really interesting to see all of the critters in the pitfalls as we processed them… lots of spiders, beetles, and grasshoppers. I’m excited to have a closer look at them in the lab. Unfortunately, a couple of the sites that we put out at the Zumwalt are located in areas where several ranchers graze their cattle. At the three lower sites many of the pitfalls had been pulled out of the ground—or stepped on in some cases. Another problems that we encountered was that because it has been so hot lately, most of the pitfalls were dried up. Overall it was a good day in the field though! We finished before noon and headed back to the station that afternoon.

20150702_091108 — Part of the Zumwalt (click to enlarge)

20150702_113620 — Sam and I processing pitfall traps at the upper sites at the Zumwalt (click to enlarge)

And since it is a holiday weekend, we got Friday off! I ended up washing the station cars early on Friday morning before it got hot outside, but then I left to go visit family in Washington for the Fourth of July!